Diversity, Justice, and Reconciliation

“We believe that Christ calls us to value diversity and to seek ways for all persons in our University community to grow in their individual giftedness and to contribute in meaningful ways to our common life and work. Thus, in all of our diversity, we are centered in Christ, and called by him to shape, model, and participate together in grace-filled community.”

A called community

At Seattle Pacific University, we believe we are a community called to be the body of Christ. We believe that every person who steps foot on our campus is made in the image of God and is called according to God’s purpose. Both in the Old Testament and in the New, Scripture commands each of us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

A guiding mission

At Seattle Pacific, we take our mission statement seriously:

Seattle Pacific University is a Christian university fully committed to engaging the culture and changing the world by graduating people of competence and character, becoming people of wisdom, and modeling grace-filled community.

We know this commitment must be realized in the midst of a complex, diverse, and ever-changing world. We put our mission to work in the classroom, the city, and around the globe.

Meet Dr. Sandra Richards Mayo. In July 2017, she joined Seattle Pacific to provide leadership in SPU’s ongoing work of reconciliation by providing strategic opportunities to fulfill SPU’s institutional mission. Find out more about her and this new SPU office.

A biblical mandate for reconciliation

“An understanding of the biblical mandate for reconciliation should begin with Jesus Christ. Without his suffering and subsequent victory over pain and death, there would be no reconciliation of God to humanity. Christ’s agony was far beyond our comprehension, and yet without it, we would still be separated from God. We are called to enter into Christ’s pain by taking up our own cross and following the Great Reconciler.”